2 Corinthians 3:6

2 Corinthians 3:6. who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. The same word is in the original thrice repeated in different forms, and it might be rendered ‘not we are fit of our-selves... but our fitness is from God, who also fitted us to be ministers,' etc. The expression “able ministers” in the Authorised Version is now unsuitable from its ambiguity, not of the letter meaning, not the letter of the law, as opposed to the spirit of the same law; but not of the law itself, considered as a code of duty, to be obeyed on pain of death, but of the spirit that word of the Gospel which, instinct with quickening power, “is spirit and life,” for the letter killeth cf. Romans 4:14, “the law worketh wrath,” and 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, “When the commandment came, gin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was unto life (in its primary intention) I found to be unto death” (through my breach of it).

From this the apostle is led into a lengthened contrast, extending to the end of the chapter, between the two dispensations, both in their essential character as killing and as quickening and, as a consequence from this, in that freedom and openness which are distinctive of the Gospel and its ministry, and the reverse of the law.